Stakeholder

SITTING watching the programme When Boris Met Dave there can be little doubt that David Cameron must be embarrassed. One suspects that the unapologetic but enigmatic Boris may have actually enjoyed the programme.

Cameron is the Tory equivalent of what the Americans call a ‘plastic Paddy’, ie an invented persona. While his counterpart and would-be rival Boris is the real McCoy – a Tory boy with a sense of destiny.

Their shared membership of the infamous Bullingdon Club should be a matter of regret, not for the foolishness that accompanies the destructive nature of some university students, but for their excess and expectation that the ordinary folk either in bars or restaurants should somehow accept their behaviour with a kind of feudal loyalty.

To members of the Bullingdon Club and their supporters it appears that their actions should be above the law or the norms of society.

What became increasingly obvious watching the programme was the fact that some members of the wider republican community still seem to think that their supporters should also be exempt from societal norms and the rule of law.

In the midst of the ongoing debate about the transfer of policing and justice powers, it is somewhat ironic that one of the parties to the debate, namely Sinn Fein, appears to want to improperly influence the direction of policing and its implementation as it affects its supporters.

The infamous line that there are no republican criminals may yet come back to haunt the Sinn Fein leadership.

Do ministers in the executive, immaterial of party, intend lobbying any would-be justice minister on the operational decisions of the police, the Public Prosecution Service, the Customs Service or the Serious Organised Crime Agency if it affects their members or friends?

If so, then the transfer of justice powers should not be devolved, even to an Alliance stooge approved by the NIO.

There is little point in Sinn Fein calling time on so-called dissidents and labelling them as criminals if the same Sinn Fein cannot call time on supporters within its own fraternity who are still involved in criminal activity.

The peace process did not confer on its signatories or its supporters any kind of special immunity from prosecution with regard to ongoing criminal activity.

It is hard enough for victims of historical terrorist acts to be expected to swallow the principle of early release without asking the whole of society to turn a blind eye to the unlawful activities of friends of the political establishment.

If it is to be otherwise, it would be preferable to collapse the current political system as it would be totally corrupt.

If friends or supporters of the political classes in Northern Ireland are to be beyond the reach of the law and if the implementers of law and order are to be rendered toothless for reasons of political expediency, then the Stormont experiment is a house built on sand, guarded by men of straw.

The issue of policing and justice is about equality. Equality means just that – that all men and women are equal before the law.

The corruption of that interpretation starts when the process to appoint a minister is not based on equality but expediency.

Last week the SDLP spent several hours legitimately, but fruitlessly, arguing the finer details about the potential failings of the entire criminal justice system. This was an attempt to assault by amendment something which was unjust at its base.

It appears that the SDLP’s cross is the all too often an impulse to impress themselves with their intellectual superiority, when in effect the simplicity of an argument lies not in the detail but in the punch.

One would have thought that after years of trying to be the Stormont swot the SDLP would recognise the benefits of being street smart.

Nevertheless the arguments about the transfer of policing and justice powers are rendered redundant if all the players don’t realise that political ownership of the justice system is more about responsibility and impartiality than ring-fencing supporters and promises of immunity.

There is more than a sense of irony that former Bullingdon members Boris Johnson and David Cameron may have shared club rules with some in Sinn Fein.

After all, their mutual inner circles are by invitation only, their sources of income need no explanation and both appear to believe that the actions of their members should remain above the law.

While Cameron wants to leave the Bullingdon ‘omerta’ behind – some in Sinn Fein don’t.